Abstract
Weak governance is a major threat to sustainable development, especially in rural contexts and within ecosystems of great social and economic value. To understand and compare its arrangement in the grasslands and wetlands of the Colombian Llanos and the Paraguayan Pantanal, we build upon the Institutional and Development Framework (IAD) as we explore the role of political, economic, and social institutions and combine components of the theory of common-pool resources (CPR) and new institutional economics (NIE). This hybrid conceptualization provides a synthesis of how top-down hierarchical and market-based systems of community-based and natural resource management negatively affect sustainable development in both study areas. Our findings suggest three underlying mechanisms causing a situation of weak governance: centralized (economic and political) power, the role of central and local governments, and social exclusion. Understanding these multidimensional contextual mechanisms improves the understanding that institutional structures supporting arrangements that handle grasslands and wetlands in a sustainable way are needed to protect the ecosystem’s social and economic values, especially in rural and marginalized contexts.
Highlights
Because grasslands and wetlands cover approximately half of the world’s ice-free land area, comprising about 70% of the world’s agricultural and livestock area, these are important agricultural resources, especially in areas where people lack food security [1]
To understand and compare its arrangement in the grasslands and wetlands of the Colombian Llanos and the Paraguayan Pantanal, we build upon the Institutional and Development Framework (IAD) as we explore the role of political, economic, and social institutions and combine components of the theory of common-pool resources (CPR) and new institutional economics (NIE)
Our findings suggest three underlying mechanisms causing a situation of weak governance: centralized power, the role of central and local governments, and social exclusion
Summary
Because grasslands and wetlands cover approximately half of the world’s ice-free land area, comprising about 70% of the world’s agricultural and livestock area, these are important agricultural resources, especially in areas where people lack food security [1]. Governmental processes concerning South American grasslands and Sustainability 2020, 12, 7214 wetlands must address socio-economic and environmental changes, power and hierarchical structure at all scales, and political dynamics, as well as stakeholder engagement schemes [5,28,29,33,44,52,53,54,55,56,57] To this end, our focus is on marginalized rural communities because of their vulnerability to weak governance, as they lack human, political, and financial capacity to protect their rights over land and natural resource use and management [58]. A field diary recorded qualitative data and notes on the behaviors and interactions of all actors involved in this study [84,85]
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